


About Turn

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Attempted Sex, Caring, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Love, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Sleeping Together, Tumblr: otpprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 11:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3409319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short follow on set after my fic The Journey and relating to events which occurred in that. Moriarty initially decides perhaps he is ready to resume having a sexual relationship with Moran but when it comes down to it he finds that he can’t go through with it.</p>
<p>Based on the prompt from the Tumblr blog OTP Prompts: “Imagine your OTP getting ready for sex but at the last second Person A says that they changed their mind and don’t want to do it anymore, and instead of Person B getting angry like Person A feared, Person B understands and they agree to do something else instead.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Turn

    Moriarty sits up and looks down at his seemingly sleeping companion. Moran lies on his front beside him, partly twisted around so that his back is to the professor (not a gesture of rejection but one of absolute trust), his face pressed into the soft pillow. The colonel looks far more peaceful these days, somewhat older than his years perhaps with rather more grey in his hair and beard than might be expected, but still contented; still as if a great burden has been lifted from his shoulders and his dreams are no longer so haunted.

     The professor smiles to himself as he is unable to resist the urge to touch his lover - his  _husband_  in all but the most trivial sense (what use after all would a mere certificate stating that they are legally wed be to them?) – to put a hand to his head and comb his fingers through Moran’s sleep-tangled hair. Moran stirs slightly under the touch and a grin breaks out across his face.

     “Good morning,” he says, not bothering to open his eyes.

     “Good morning,” Moriarty returns in a low voice, leaning over Moran’s back to whisper this in Moran’s ear.

     “What time is it?” Moran asks, still not concerning himself with moving.

     “A little after seven.”

     “Ah.” Moran does not comment on this further, knowing that still the pain of Moriarty’s injuries keep him from sleeping as much as he would prefer sometimes. During the height of summer the pain was not so bad for him but now it is the tail end of that season, segueing from summer into autumn, a time when the light has changed subtly but still noticeably; when the shadows seem just that little bit more stark and gloomy and there is the slightest hint of winter’s icy breath in the air. On the tree outside their bedroom window the leaves are just beginning to turn, losing some of their lustrous green colour, transmuting into gold. Autumn may be considered a beautiful time of year but with the increasing coldness and dampness of the air Moriarty’s aches and pains can surely only increase.

    Still, the days at least are still warm enough at present, even if the nights are a little chilly, and they have another three days here in their rented holiday cottage to better appreciate what little remains of the summer’s warmth away from the fumes and dirt of London.

     Now at last Moran twists around so that he lies face to face with Moriarty. Smiling, he gives the professor a soft peck on the lips. “You all right?”

     “Yes.”

    “Not in too much pain?”

    “It is tolerable, at present.” Moriarty slips a hand around Moran’s body, loosely embracing him.

    “Good.” Moran slides his hand around the professor’s back, down his spine, his palm brushing over the nightshirt he wears. “Tell me if it gets too bad again.” He buries his face against the side of Moriarty’s neck, just breathing in his scent for a moment, before lightly kissing his throat at last.

     “I will.” Moriarty’s breath hitches slightly and his breathing becomes slightly more rapid.

    Noticing this, concerned by it, Moran twists his face up to look at him questioningly. “Professor?” Moriarty’s hand has come to rest on his hip and he feels the tension in the professor now.

     Moriarty swallows thickly before speaking again. “It has been… such a long time since we… since we were intimate, as we used to be.”

      Moran gives him another quick smile, trying to be reassuring but also puzzled by Moriarty’s raising of this matter again. “It has,” he says hesitantly, unsure where this is leading. “But it’s all right,” he adds quickly. “There are other ways to be intimate.”

    Moriarty puts his hand to Moran’s cheek. “Do you miss it?” he asks.

    “Of course I do.” Moran says this quickly, perfectly honestly, aware that to even try to lie would hurt the professor more than to tell him the truth. He lifts his own hand to cover Moriarty’s, drawing it down to kiss the professor’s palm. “But not so much that I’m unhappy.”

    “I miss it,” Moriarty confesses abruptly. He glances away and sighs. “I miss… being able to satisfy you in that way; I miss the profound sense of intimacy of it; I miss the time when I felt that I was in control of myself and not a slave to the treachery of my body and mind. How can I miss the sex with you, Moran, and yet be also filled with such revulsion at the thought of attempting it again? It makes not a grain of sense.”

     “You’ve been through a lot, Professor, physically and emotionally,” Moran points out, though he declines to add that they have both been through much hardship in these past few years. The bond of love and trust between them was never entirely severed even with the professor’s presumed death at the Reichenbach Falls but it  _was_  badly shaken. It hardly surprises him then that the professor’s attitude to sex has gone backwards somewhat, making him not merely reluctant but  _afraid_  even to resume that particular form of intimacy. Not that the professor will ever actually admit to feeling something as base as fear, but Moran would no more force him to admit to that than he would try to force Moriarty into performing the sexual act.

     Moriarty glances at him again and smiles sadly. “My dearest Sebastian.” A lesser man perhaps might take offence, but not his Moran. The colonel may not entirely understand his lover’s feelings but he remains oddly sensitive to his needs and he does grasp that Moriarty’s revulsion is directed at the sexual act itself, not towards him. “I despise how irrational this is; I should be the master of my own desires.”

    “You need more time to heal, sir,” Moran points out, though whether he is referring to physical or psychological healing remains uncertain.

    “Damn it all!” Moriarty spits, and abruptly he leans over and slips his hand around the back of Moran’s head, gripping him tightly by the hair and practically yanking him into a rough kiss. “I want to try it now,” he says upon finally letting the startled yet unresisting Moran up for air.

     “Now?” Moran’s eyes appear dark with newly stirred lust and Moriarty can feel him also growing tentatively hard against his hip, but his instinct to always protect and care for the professor remains at the fore.

    “Yes,” Moriarty growls. “Now.”

    “You’re sure?”

    “Yes, damn it!” Moriarty drags Moran into another kiss, stealing his breath again and quickly provoking him into a state of full arousal.

    “God, Professor.” Moran laughs against Moriarty’s mouth, uncertain where to put his hands as Moriarty climbs atop him, pressing him back into the pillows. He settles upon letting them roam across Moriarty’s body, not yet daring to touch his skin however. “God, God, James.” He lets his head tip back, baring his throat, as Moriarty kisses under his jaw; across the point where his pulse beats rapidly; down his neck. It feels good; no, it feels  _marvellous_ , and yet… there remains a nagging little doubt in the back of his mind, a little voice saying that something is not quite right here. Were he to examine things rationally perhaps he would not be able to put his finger on precisely what is wrong even then, he could only state that something simply feels off-kilter. That there is less surety and confidence to Moriarty’s movements perhaps is to be expected given all that has occurred and this does not mean that the professor is unwilling. Nor does the fact that Moriarty is not yet hard mean anything bad. After all, often in the past the professor has required much more physical stimulation than Moran to become sufficiently aroused. But… he feels how Moriarty tenses when Moran slides his hands down further to cup Moriarty’s buttocks. He almost forgets to take any further notice of this though as he feels the professor’s warm hand wrap around his hard length and squeeze gently –  _almost_.

     “ _James_ ,” he chokes out the name, very nearly overwhelmed by the sensation, allowing his eyes to slip half closed as Moriarty strokes him. But still there is something very urgent – much more urgent even than his need for release – that needs attention. It takes him a second or two but when he opens his eyes and looks at Moriarty he understands.

    The professor’s eyes are closed and he has twisted his face away, and that is not right. Moriarty likes –  _liked_  – to watch Moran come undone under him; to revel in the mastery and control he wielded over his partner even as he surrendered to his own libido.

    “Professor,” Moran says, his voice tremulous from arousal. “Sir, are you in pain again?”

     “No, I’m all right.”

     “Well are you sure then, this is what you want?”

     “ _Yes_ ,” Moriarty hisses, still with his eyes tightly shut.

     “Sir…” Moran puts his hand on Moriarty’s wrist, slowing the movement of the professor’s hand.

     “Moran,” Moriarty says and his voice too is trembling, but almost certainly not from arousal.

     “Are you sure?” Moran asks again.

     “No.” Moriarty stills completely for a second or two, then turns away entirely from Moran. “No, Sebastian, I am not sure at all, of anything.”

     Moran lets out a long, shaky breath before pulling himself up, scooting over to sit beside Moriarty on the edge of the bed. “It’s all right,” he says.

     “It’s not all right!” Moriarty snarls. “It is very far from all right!” He stands up, brushing aside Moran as the colonel reaches to touch him. “That I should treat you the same as I treated those who meant  _nothing_  to me! That I should simultaneously crave the return of such physical intimacy with you yet when it comes down to it feel such  _loathing_  for the act as I felt when I considered doing it with other men in the past! It is completely illogical!” He snatches up his dressing gown from off the chair and pulls it on over his nightshirt, wrapping it tightly around himself.

     Moran, never ordinarily one who feels a need to preserve his modesty, decides on this occasion that following suit and covering himself is the most appropriate course of action. He too gets up and puts on his robe, sliding it over his bare skin. “It’s not…” He pushes his hair back off his face and sighs a little. “It’s not illogical, Professor, it’s just… too soon. You’ve been badly hurt; we were apart for so long too. It’s too soon for this.”

    “It has been  _over a year_!” Moriarty snaps. “How long must we wait? Another six months? Another year? Five years? Ten?  _Forever_?”

    “It’ll take as long as it takes, sir. I don’t think this is something we can rush and even if we never do it again, well, it don’t matter to me, it really don’t.”

    “It matters to  _me_!” Moriarty punctuates this last word with a thump of his fist against his chest. “It matters to me that I cannot… I cannot bring myself to do with you again what I have done so many times before! It matters to me that I still have physical urges I cannot relieve! It matters to me that I have let you down again!”

     “You haven’t let me down, sir.” Moran looks at him with a fierce intensity in his blue eyes. “You  _haven’t_.”

     “You have every right to be angry with me.”

     “I ain’t angry with you.”

     “Upset then!”

     “I ain’t upset neither. I’m just… I’m concerned.”

     “I do not want or need your pity.”

     “I didn’t bloody say I pitied you!” Moran snaps, taking a step closer towards Moriarty, but he composes himself an instant later. “Concern ain’t pity. I don’t pity you, I never pitied you; you are far too fine for that.”

     Moriarty laughs bitterly. Tipping back his head, he leans back against the wall, arms folded across his chest as he eyes Moran. After a few seconds he closes his eyes again. “I cannot bear to make such a fool of myself in front of you.” He screws his eyes tightly closed again and for one awful second Moran actually thinks the professor might be about to burst into tears.

     “Professor,” he says gently, “I’ve made a right fool of myself in front of you enough times that I lost count, and did you ever think ill of me for that? Did you ever condemn me for that? Mock me? Laugh at me? No you didn’t, and I’d not do that to you neither.” Moran takes another step closer towards Moriarty, lifting his hand but quite deliberately not touching the professor. Instead he puts his palm flat against the wall beside Moriarty’s left shoulder. Standing there right in front of his lover, he looks into the professor’s eyes. “Look,” he says, “if you want us to lie together again like we used to then maybe one day we will; we’ll work through it and take our time over it and make it feel good again, but not yet; not today. James…” He slowly moves his hand again, making sure Moriarty can see and understand his movements, only putting his hand to the professor’s face when he is sure that Moriarty is accepting of such contact. “I may never have entirely understood your feelings about sex any more than you can wholly understand mine, but I know your feelings about it are  _not_  like mine; I know that if you decide to have sex then that is a far more momentous and meaningful decision for you than my decision to do it. I’ve never taken this lightly, you know; sex with you has always been… well it’s been a privilege, not a right, and I’ve always,  _always_  regarded it as your right to withdraw that privilege if you’re not comfortable with it.” 

     Moriarty smiles rather sadly now. “I know, pet,” he says, thinking of all the occasions where Moran has held back; when he has backed off without a word of protest when Moriarty has gently but firmly declined his playfully flirtatious advances. His companion may have killed people but truly Moran has never struck him as the type capable of sexually violating someone. Sometimes even murderers have standards.

    “Then don’t act like you’ve forgotten that I care for you; as if you’ve forgotten what  _these_  mean.” Moran reaches with his left hand now and snatches up Moriarty’s left hand, interlinking their fingers. On each of their little fingers still their matching gold rings, each engraved with the letter M, shine warmly.

     Moriarty looks down at the two identical gold bands. “I have not forgotten.”

     “I pledged myself to you, Professor,” Moran tells him. “I promised myself to you, and none other, because I love you, and my love is not conditional; it is not dependent on us fucking again. If you can fuck me again then good, great; I’ll be totally bloody ecstatic when or if we do ever fuck again, even if it takes months or years or decades before you’re comfortable with that again. If that’s what you truly want and it matters so much to you that some day we lie together like that again then I will do whatever it takes to help you to enjoy fucking me again but if we don’t, if you can’t, then I’ll still love you the same and I would  _never_  mock you or insult you or get angry with you for being uncertain.”

     “Not even for showing weakness?”

     “It’s not weakness just to show some basic human doubts and insecurities from time to time, and I know you like to pretend you’re this inhuman machine sometimes…” Moran notes how Moriarty compresses his lips into a thin, tight smile here and as a result a degree more amusement creeps into his tone as he continues. “Professor James Moriarty, the calculating criminal genius sitting at the centre of his web, plottin’ and schemin’ and actin’ like he has no emotions and no human feelings whatsoever. But you ain’t inhuman, you ain’t a machine; you never have been, not even before you put this ring on my finger and actually told me you loved me too. You cared for me, James, almost from the start, and I care for you too.”

    “I thought that…” Moriarty pauses and looks over Moran’s shoulder into space. “I could get past my temporary aversion by force of will.”

     “You can’t force these things, sir.”

     “I am sorry, Sebastian.”

     “Don’t be sorry.”

     “I led you on then let you down.”

     “Stop saying you let me down; you were true to yourself and to your own feelings and to me too. You did  _not_  let me down.” Now Moran slips his hand around the back of Moriarty’s head and very gently draws the professor’s face towards his until their foreheads touch. “Just give it more time, hmm?”

    This time when Moriarty closes his eyes there is much less tension in the action; this time he is merely reflecting upon matters and savouring the feel of Moran so close to him. “Very well,” he says with a rueful smile.

     Moran turns his face slightly to give the professor another soft kiss on the lips. “Why don’t we go back to bed for a bit?” he suggests. “It’s still a tad chilly out yet.”

     “What about…?” Moriarty darts a glance down to the vicinity of Moran’s groin. “Do you not need to… relieve yourself?”

     The colonel laughs. “Don’t worry about that; it don’t matter.” Indeed as if aware it was no longer required, his erection has already long since disappeared and he feels that any lingering sense of arousal can be firmly ignored until a more suitable time arises to attend to it.     

     “Well have I not still managed to irrevocably destroy the pleasant atmosphere between us for this morning?” Moriarty queries.

     “Not irrevocably, no.” Moran grins broadly at him as he takes the professor by the hand, leading him back to the bed. “Come on; just hold me, Professor, please?”

     By the side of the bed, Moriarty regards him for a few seconds before breaking into a very genuine, warm smile this time. “Very well.” He sets his dressing gown aside before slipping back into the bed.

     Moran stands there for a second longer however, wondering if removing his robe and thus getting back into the bed nude would be appropriate now.

     “Take it off, Moran,” Moriarty tells him. “I have no qualms about you being naked.”

    “All right.” Moran shrugs off the robe and tosses it aside, sliding quickly back into the bed alongside the professor.

     Almost at once Moriarty draws Moran to him, embracing him, allowing Moran to snuggle against his side, Moran’s head nestling against his shoulder. This he can do; this feels warm and safe and familiar and even if it cannot entirely eclipse his lingering sense of shame and humiliation, still it can go a long way towards ameliorating that, particularly when Moran gives out a little sigh of contentment upon settling down with him.

     “What did you want to do later?” the colonel enquires after a minute or two. “Any particular plans?”

     “Perhaps just a stroll on the beach.”

     “If you like.” Moran reaches over and draws Moriarty’s left hand across to rest on the professor’s stomach. There he strokes his thumb across Moriarty’s knuckles, his touch passing over the gold ring on the little finger, almost reverentially brushing that abiding symbol of the bond between them. “Whatever makes you happy, sir.”

    “What about  _your_  happiness, Sebastian?” Moriarty dares to ask.

    Moran smiles as he closes his eyes again, letting his right hand remain atop Moriarty’s left. “If you’re happy then I’m happy.” His smile becomes a broader, far more wicked grin. “Well, so long as you’re happy  _and_  you buy me an ice cream later.”

     Moriarty laughs heartily at this. “Very well, pigeon,” he says. “I think I can manage that.” And he kisses the top of Moran’s head affectionately before allowing his own eyes to slip closed once more.                                                                                    


End file.
